over the years they've tacked a few minutes onto the schedued length of the trip. Maybe before the airport stop and Secaucus Junction opened. Very few are 40 minutes anymore.
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OT: Any NJ Town (w/ NYC commute) Recommendations
- Thread starter SKOHR
- Start date
I think the best part of what's been a well-thought out, civil thread is that no one has had the temerity to suggest the Marlboros and Manalapans of the world. No offense to RU4Real and RUJohnny99.
So I think we've evolved past suggesting nonsense like those two municipalities.
So I think we've evolved past suggesting nonsense like those two municipalities.
I think that might just be off peak, bit I'm a year out of touch and might have missed that.
Ok. 5 minutes from your home to train station. 3 minutes from your car on to the train. 40 minute train ride to Hoboken. 4 minutes from train to ferry. 8 minute ferry ride. That is one hour, assuming no waiting time and assuming your wife works at the ferry terminal in Manhattan. Add some waiting time and a 15 minute walk if you work somewhere else downtown, and you're closer to an hour and a half.
This is not a comment on any specific commute, but rather a comment on Upstreams approach, which is applicable for any commute. As Upstream says, make sure you consider time to the train or bus, parking, waiting for the train or bus, connections, subway or walk, etc. In my opinion many people significantly underestimate the "door to door" commute time. Its not a bad idea to narrow it down to maybe 3 or 4 towns based on budget, schools, other factors important to you, and then actually make the commute from each as sort of a trial run.
In the context of considering the Westfield / Cranford area, seriously consider Scotch Plains / Fanwood. Much more affordable than Westfield. Lots of families, kids.
I've lived in Scotch Plains for 20+ years and do EVERYTHING in Westfield.(except pay taxes). 4 kids. Commute, Church, Westfield YMCA, grammar school (Holy Trinity), always eating downtown, walkable for older kids.
Definitely worth a look.
I've lived in Scotch Plains for 20+ years and do EVERYTHING in Westfield.(except pay taxes). 4 kids. Commute, Church, Westfield YMCA, grammar school (Holy Trinity), always eating downtown, walkable for older kids.
Definitely worth a look.
LOL. You just like to make stuff up to make it seem like you know what you're talking about?
Have to agree with Sleeping. A lot of it has to do with a school system's reputation, what colleges/universities they have sent kids in the past, where graduates ultimately get jobs and how a school system markets itself to universities. Not that one case proves anything but as an example there were 17 or 18 perfect test scores in Piscataway a few years back (not necessarily 17 or 18 separate kids) and lots of kids with excellent GPAs with all honors and AP classes, yet not one got into an Ivy. I know one kid personally who had a perfect math SAT, near perfect verbal, 4.0+ GPA with honors classes, varsity sports, leadership clubs etc and was rejected by the Ivies, Duke, Stanford, NW, and others. He is at Rutgers now and doing fine but my bet is that had he (and others) been in a different school system, many more choices would have been available.
I live in Montville, NJ, a great town with great public school system. There is a great park in center of town and they also have updated a play area for young kids, dog park,.... You have plenty of options to commute to NY. In the morning, there is a Lakeland bus that goes to Port Authority at 6:30 am & I think 7:15 am. Returning there are 2 buses, 1 at 5:30 and another at 6:30. You can park for free at the Towaco train station to catch those buses.
The other option is to park at Wayne Transit Center which is 10 mins from Montville and in the morning there are buses every 10 mins to NY and same after I think 4pm to round 6pm back to Wayne Transit.
All the buses in the morning have express lanes going thru the tunnel and it takes about 30/45 mins to get into the city, depending on traffic that day. There is also a Towaco train station in town but I don't think there are any direct trains into the city from that train station.
I'm in sales and have to frequently go into the city at various times for meetings and I love all the options I have. Take the Lakeland bus from town, park at Wayne Transit or even sometimes I go to Harrison or Secaucus Junction to catch the train in. Hope this helps!
The other option is to park at Wayne Transit Center which is 10 mins from Montville and in the morning there are buses every 10 mins to NY and same after I think 4pm to round 6pm back to Wayne Transit.
All the buses in the morning have express lanes going thru the tunnel and it takes about 30/45 mins to get into the city, depending on traffic that day. There is also a Towaco train station in town but I don't think there are any direct trains into the city from that train station.
I'm in sales and have to frequently go into the city at various times for meetings and I love all the options I have. Take the Lakeland bus from town, park at Wayne Transit or even sometimes I go to Harrison or Secaucus Junction to catch the train in. Hope this helps!
What Ridge means about the school system in Maplewood is that ...Oh well you can figure it out.. Metuchen is a little outside of the 45 minute criteria but it is all you desire. And the school system would please Mr Ridge.
The school matters a lot for getting into top colleges. I grew up in fair lawn, wife went to a Catholic school (one of the football ones) in Bergen county. FL put more than 10 in Ivy's + more in otgrr top schools (not, mud, etc(. Her Catholic a school put none. This was 15 years back.
Now going to Rutgers (both alum) it didn't matter much.
Now going to Rutgers (both alum) it didn't matter much.
Well, the town I live in isn't one of the rich towns mentioned but I know there are still HS graduates that go to Ivy League schools. One went to Rutgers on full scholarship freshman year but decided to transfer to NYU. the parents just was laid off from their jobs at JP Morgan, I hope they have enough to pay for NYU tuition.
Of course it would be great to live in Montclair, Monville, Summit, Morristown, Ridgewood or Glen Rock and you probably get a better education. However, half the people on the board can't afford those towns and there are other options available. Don't spend all your money on your house if you can not still put money away for your retirement plan and your kids college education.
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Both McNair in Jersey City and JP Stevens in Edison are two of the highest ranked high schools in NJ and both are majority minority. One of the beautiful things about NJ, we are much further beyond (though not past) these problems than other states.
lol well, they do not meet OP's criteria. You could have a decent commute if you lived right off Route 9 and worked in the Times Square area, though.
Neither town has a downtown and the high school in Manalapan somehow appears to be getting questionable. I was recently reading their SAT average was basically the worst in the FRHSD.
Surprised Metuchen didn't make your list (and not because I live here). It's about a 45 minute commute (train time) on the Northeast Corridor to Penn Station and most of the housing stock is within a 10 minute walk to the train station (and a new parking deck is going up, if you don't want to walk). Schools were #19 in 2012 and dropped to #77 in 2014, presumably because my buddy, who was assistant superintendent left for another district (I'm kidding - he always said those school rankings are to be taken with a grain of salt, even when we were #19 - schools are definitely pretty to very good).
Downtown is small, but fairly vibrant, with some nice new restaurants and the first major building going on in 20+ years: bringing in a Whole Foods (our only major food store left 10 years ago), a new parking deck, and new apartments with retail space on the ground level, what looks to be a nice plaza. It's not as swanky as Westfield or some of the others, but then again, it's not as expensive for real estate.
The town also has a real small-town feel - we've had the same group of 12-15 friends for 20+ years (nobody has moved) and we see people we know just about every time we're downtown in a restaurant or one of the local bars. One other advantage is highway access - we're less than 5 minutes from 287, the Turnpike and the Parkway (and 1/9/27) and are only 40 minutes from the Jersey Shore (and <10 minutes from Staten Island if heading there or to Brooklyn/JKF/LI).
I visited Somerville today for the first time. Beautiful downtown. How long is that train ride?
Too long. Well over an hour to NYPS. The RVL sucks balls. I used to live a 10 minute walk to a RVL station but preferred to drive to Edison TS. One seat and better options. This is why I'd steer clear of Westfield, Cranford, FW/SP, etc. NJCL is the best.
Oh, no. Definitely don't move here. No way. Nobody should move here, ever.
Delicate subject, but quite a few incidental bits and pieces I hear from parents of seniors in high school indicate it is tough for white kids and white males to get accepted to any Ivy and/or get scholarship money.
Do you think it's fair that kids of color get into Ivy League schools with significantly lesser academic credentials than some white kids?
And on a somewhat unrelated note, my wife and I just got back from my oldest daughter's graduation - MS in Occupational Therapy from Sacred Heart.
They graduated all the grad programs today. The "S & T" portions of Sacred Heart's STEM programs were all Indian and Arab - and all from overseas. White kids, black kids, Asian kids in total accounted for maybe 10% of all those programs.
Why bother with LL, who sounds like another AIDS Skrillex/Carl the Cuck. Check out AIDS Skrillex on Youtube.
Somerville's downtown is really up and coming. Don't think it's commutable though, at least not if you have to do it every day.
Congratulatons to your daughter! I knew a guy on the fencing team at Sacred Heart.
Do you think it's fair that blacks lag whites in every significant socioeconomic indicator? Do you think a kid with a 4.0 GPA and 1500 SAT from Millburn High School has better "academic credentials" than a kid with a 3.7 and a 1300 from Weequaic High?
I firmly believe that academic qualifications should stand on their own.
And the fact of the matter is, when you really look at it, these schools aren't admitting inner city black kids from questionable high schools ahead of suburban white kids from elite private schools. They're admitting minority kids from suburban schools - with lower GPAs and lower standardized test scores and, to an even greater extent, they're admitting foreign students of color with basically no academic credentials at all.
My youngest is finishing up her junior year at Dickinson. Yes, it's an outstanding school. And yes, her academic qualifications coming out of one of the area's premier parochials were outstanding to the point of being near enough as makes no difference perfect. She was denied by Yale, denied by Princeton and based solely on her academic quals would have been in the top 10%, academically, of either one of those school's admitted freshmen.
The fact that "blacks lag whites in every socioeconomic factor" shouldn't be relevant, here. They should be admitted to schools commensurate with their qualifications. The Ivies aren't admitting black kids to give them some sort of socioeconomic break - they're admitting them because it is, in the present day, chic to be able to brag about institutional diversity. Most of the minority kids they're admitting from here in the US aren't what you'd call "poor".
The problem with institutional diversity as implemented is that you wind up going on college visits with tour guides who don't speak English. (This is not hyperbole - it happened twice, at Wesleyan and Cornell).
And thank you, by the way. Mom and I are quite proud. Once more to pay for and we're done. Of course, the little one wants to go to law school. :)
Do you think a white kid with a 4.0 GP and 1500 SAT and parents with a blue collar background from Westfield High has better "academic credentials than a minority kid with a 3.7 and 1300 GPA and parents with a a white collar job at Westfield High?
For what it's worth I was going to the pier 11 ferry terminal which is a full 15-17 min ferry ride from Hoboken. The train from New Prov also got in at a time that made me miss a ferry by about 2 mins and have to wait a full 15 mins before the next ferry. The commute from NP for my office was easily 90 mins each day. New Providence is a fantastic town and if I worked in midtown I'd be living there instead of Fair Haven.
Well I think the other thing you need to look at for the commute is access to the train station. Many of these places have limited parking at stations so living in a Westfield and Cranford where for many lots you could walk to the station over say a Clark or Mountainside is kind of a big deal. If you are planning to drive and park at the station ask if there are spaces available and what the monthly fees are before deciding.
And depending on which part of Clark you are in, you may be much better off going to Metropark station.
On a related note, I'm curious how much people think the cost of commuting into Manhattan is worth. Not just the cost of the monthly train or bus ticket but your time and all the aggravation it entails.
On most days it's a 20 minute drive from my job to my house. Not that I'm looking, but if I could get a job paying 20K a year more in Manhattan, I don't think I'd take it. And I definitely wouldn't for 10K.
In my opinion, you can't put a price on working two towns away from where you live. Anyone have thoughts on this aspect of it?
On most days it's a 20 minute drive from my job to my house. Not that I'm looking, but if I could get a job paying 20K a year more in Manhattan, I don't think I'd take it. And I definitely wouldn't for 10K.
In my opinion, you can't put a price on working two towns away from where you live. Anyone have thoughts on this aspect of it?
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I have always felt I would rather spend twice as much time on a train than driving. I have worked in NY in the past but don't currently (expect I will again eventually). The us side of a commute is you can read world news, sporting forums, etc.
Yep, I know Metuchen lots have been full for awhile, plus living in town and walking will save commuters in the neighborhood of $100-$150 per month in parking fees in most towns. That, on top of the $300-$500 per month for a monthly rail pass to Penn Station is quite a bit of money to pay for the privilege of being abused every day for a NYC commute. That's why I've loved my 18 mile round trip commute for the past 27 years.
My wife and I each did the commute to NYC for many years and lived in two of the towns people are suggesting to you. A few more things for you to consider:
1. It's not just the travel time to NYC but also the frequency of the trains or buses during peak and non-peak hours. If you miss your train home by a few minutes how long will it be before the next one runs?
2. If you and your wife both plan to continue to work in NYC how important to you will it be for your children to be able to get to places - school, ball games, the library, town, etc. - on their own? Some of the towns on the list on easy for kids to navigate without needing rides in cars.
3. What does a "vibrant" downtown means to you? Are you looking for bars and restaurants to be included? Shopping? Or just a place to enjoy walking around and spend some time on weekend afternoons?
1. It's not just the travel time to NYC but also the frequency of the trains or buses during peak and non-peak hours. If you miss your train home by a few minutes how long will it be before the next one runs?
2. If you and your wife both plan to continue to work in NYC how important to you will it be for your children to be able to get to places - school, ball games, the library, town, etc. - on their own? Some of the towns on the list on easy for kids to navigate without needing rides in cars.
3. What does a "vibrant" downtown means to you? Are you looking for bars and restaurants to be included? Shopping? Or just a place to enjoy walking around and spend some time on weekend afternoons?
It took a huge bump for me to take a job in Manhattan, enough of a jump that I could afford a place in JC and private school. The commute from longer out is soul sucking (I did it for a bit before we moved).
Well, Westfield HS is only 2 percent black so I would call that a minor issue indeed.
Did you know Weequhaic has zero white students? Zero.
If the vast majority of NJ's African Americans are attending schools ranked in the bottom half of the state, then the pure objective "test scores and SATs" methodology championed by some would result in NJ's blacks basically being nonexistent at the best universities.
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I live in Fair Lawn now, have had 2 kids go through the school system, 2 more in. Less than impressed with the school system if your kid is in the middle 80%; if your kid tracks into AP, or is in the special ed part of the spectrum, school system is phenomenal. Look into more than ratings as they will only tell you part of the story.
The Fair Lawn schools have a very good reputation; 20 years ago it was a great reputation. I was disappointed to be honest.
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